Mandallorean
11-16-2006, 04:05 AM
Hello, I’m a Ranger
The Ranger, for all intents and purposes, is basically a DPS character. While they are fairly good at soloing, a group setting is where the Ranger truly shines. While you won’t be dealing as much total damage as the mages, your group tank will welcome the ranger’s ability to burn down the target quickly while he or she holds the aggro. Add to this the rangers ability to slow, stun and debuff the target and you have a very beneficial addition to any group. The Ranger also opens up the greatest range of Heroic Opportunities, so keep those wheels spinning while in group.
Outfitting
There are three absolute musts if you want your Ranger to live up to his/her full potential.
First; make sure you have the best bow you can equip at all times. There are a number of good bows on the market, but some of the best ones are quest rewards. There are approximately 12 bows that are quest related. Many more (about 106 total bows in the game) are drops, raid rewards, crafted or purchased from merchants. You will want to do some research on-line and put a list together of different bows you like and the levels they can be equipped at. With the exception of a few in-betweens and a fantastic fabled bow I got in a raid (Valian Bow), some of my favorite bows have been quest bows. The following are quests I did that provided great bows for a Ranger character at the appropriate level:
Hawk Hunt (Level 7 – Reward: Gregor’s Old Bow)
The Balance of Life (Level 12 – Reward: Willow Wood Bow of Service)
The One-Eyed Chief (Level 20 – Reward: One-Eyed Bow)
Operation Greenhood (Level 30 – Reward: Sureshot Bow or Bloodlet Bow depending on who you turn the quest in to).
Grizzfazzle’s Errands (Level 60 – Reward: Grizzfazzle’s Bow)
Second; carry as many arrows as you possibly can (I can easily burn through 1500 arrows in Sanctum of Scaleborn or Palace of Awakening in a single night). If you can, get somebody to make you a quiver or buy the best one you can afford. I personally carry a 22-slot quiver that is always full and I still have up to 10 stacks of arrows in my bags just in case.
To begin with, you will have to buy your arrows just like any other common guard or zerker (oh, the shame), but at level 20, you will get a spell called “Makeshift Arrows” which means Ranger life just got a whole lot easier. Now, every ten minutes you can queue a spell that creates arrows in your inventory. How many arrows depends on the level of the spell. Apprentice II – 20 arrows, Adept I - 35, Adept III - 45 and Master I – 60. You will get updates for this spell at level 34 (Salvaged Arrows), level 48 (Backup Quiver) and level 64 (Reclaimed Arrows). You should keep these spells at Adept III or better, else you may well find yourself running out of arrows.
Third; use poison, lots of it. I learned this late (around level 35) and let me say, the difference was day and night. I went from struggling to solo blue cons to easily soloing yellows overnight. I try to keep 3 poisons active at any given time (poison debuff), (high damage / low DOT) and (low damage / high DOT). The poison debuff will stack with the others, but if one of the damage / DOT’s proc it will cancel the other if it is going. Still, it is 2 rolls to proc vs. one so worth the investment and you will see the difference in the outcome as one or the other is almost always going.
Combat
Being a ranger, you will be moving around a lot. There is kind of a battle dance that you will need to get good at to succeed. For soloing, what seems to work the best is to start from maximum bow range with your slowing arrow, then hit the target with DOT and debuff arrows as it (now slowed) makes it way to you. Once you are toe-to-toe, immediately hit the target with your stun and move behind for a back attack that places you in stealth and then use a high damage stealth attack (a little tricky because ranger stun only lasts 6 seconds). At this point I will fire off an H.O. and/or a few hand-to-hand frontals depending on how the target’s health bar looks. By this time my stun is back up. Re-stun the target, backup and fill it with arrows. If you are using a good bow and decent poison, this should do the trick with any non-heroic yellow on down. Rinse and repeat.
In a group, your strategy will be a little different. You now have your tank to think of. He's that nice polite guy out front getting the hell beat out of him and you need to manage the damage you are dolling out at the beginning so that he keeps all the aggro. Depending on your location, you will also not be moving around as much due to the chance of adds or close underground hallways. Unless there is a reason not to, I will generally stay right at the minimum distance to use a bow. That way you can switch from bow shot to backstab without moving most of the time. Start out with your slowing arrow, then hit it with DOT / debuff arrows. At this point I will begin hitting with moderate damage shots every 2 - 3 seconds so that I don’t steal agro. Once the target is in the orange, I step up the rate of fire a little and when it hits red, fire away with your high damage shots. Since hopefully you will be behind the target the entire fight, you can vary between bow shots and backstabs. This combination works well in that you can be doing backstabs while your bow spells are resetting and vice versa.
If you do steal agro (and you will), don’t panic. Your tank is trying to get it back, just hit you threat reducing hot-keys to make that job easier.
Armor
As a ranger, you will have the choice of cloth, leather or chain armor (sorry, no plate). Stick with the chain. There is some great looking leather armor out there, but the higher mitigation values from chain sort of speak for themselves. Don't think we even need to discuss cloth. I have been lucky enough to be in a guild with some great armorsmiths, so have had the luxury (at a fairly low price) of some nice suits of armor.
Ideally, I try to go for the full suit of similar materials as these total suits are very well balanced and designed to carry you through the full 10 levels to your next suit. Try to get the imbued chest and leggings if you can as they will add a nice healing and damage proc. The chain you will want to be looking for:
Level 20-30: Steel (Legendary), Carbonite (Handcrafted)
Level 30-40: Feysteel (Legendary), Feyiron (Handcrafted)
Level 40-50: Ebon (Legendary)
Level 50-60: Cobalt (Legendary)
Level 60-70: Xegonite (Legendary)
Now, to be fair, this legendary stuff isn't cheap. I have listed the “one-notch-below-legendary” suits in the level 20-30 and 30-40 ranges only because the handcrafted suits are much more cost effective, and I did not see much of the legendary equipment available at the times I was at those levels. Plus, what I did see was outlandishly expensive for the money a typical character (a.k.a. Mandallorean) had at those levels, I never could afford a single piece.
There are also some very nice suits of quest-related chain armor available (Mist Grinnin in Nek Forrest for 20+, Emerald Hide in Zek for 30+ and Misthide in EL for 30+) that will also out fit you nicely. This is the route I went throughout my 20’s and 30’s and it worked fine.
Weapons
Two words: Dual Wield. I used a shield for my first 25 levels. Once I tried using two weapons, I never touched a shield again. Chain armor, even with a shield, just isn’t going to keep you up that long. You need to make the other guy dead before you are, and Dual Wield gets you there much faster. Trust me, you’ll like it. Plus the bonuses to your abilities almost always add up to more with two weapons.
Make sure you get three dual weapons with each of the damage types (crushing, slashing and piercing). Rotate them around from time to time to keep your skills up in all three areas.
That’s some general basics on Rangers from my perspective. I didn’t even get into evac, pathfinding, tracking, stealth, etc. Maybe need to work on a Part II soon.
See you out there.
The Ranger, for all intents and purposes, is basically a DPS character. While they are fairly good at soloing, a group setting is where the Ranger truly shines. While you won’t be dealing as much total damage as the mages, your group tank will welcome the ranger’s ability to burn down the target quickly while he or she holds the aggro. Add to this the rangers ability to slow, stun and debuff the target and you have a very beneficial addition to any group. The Ranger also opens up the greatest range of Heroic Opportunities, so keep those wheels spinning while in group.
Outfitting
There are three absolute musts if you want your Ranger to live up to his/her full potential.
First; make sure you have the best bow you can equip at all times. There are a number of good bows on the market, but some of the best ones are quest rewards. There are approximately 12 bows that are quest related. Many more (about 106 total bows in the game) are drops, raid rewards, crafted or purchased from merchants. You will want to do some research on-line and put a list together of different bows you like and the levels they can be equipped at. With the exception of a few in-betweens and a fantastic fabled bow I got in a raid (Valian Bow), some of my favorite bows have been quest bows. The following are quests I did that provided great bows for a Ranger character at the appropriate level:
Hawk Hunt (Level 7 – Reward: Gregor’s Old Bow)
The Balance of Life (Level 12 – Reward: Willow Wood Bow of Service)
The One-Eyed Chief (Level 20 – Reward: One-Eyed Bow)
Operation Greenhood (Level 30 – Reward: Sureshot Bow or Bloodlet Bow depending on who you turn the quest in to).
Grizzfazzle’s Errands (Level 60 – Reward: Grizzfazzle’s Bow)
Second; carry as many arrows as you possibly can (I can easily burn through 1500 arrows in Sanctum of Scaleborn or Palace of Awakening in a single night). If you can, get somebody to make you a quiver or buy the best one you can afford. I personally carry a 22-slot quiver that is always full and I still have up to 10 stacks of arrows in my bags just in case.
To begin with, you will have to buy your arrows just like any other common guard or zerker (oh, the shame), but at level 20, you will get a spell called “Makeshift Arrows” which means Ranger life just got a whole lot easier. Now, every ten minutes you can queue a spell that creates arrows in your inventory. How many arrows depends on the level of the spell. Apprentice II – 20 arrows, Adept I - 35, Adept III - 45 and Master I – 60. You will get updates for this spell at level 34 (Salvaged Arrows), level 48 (Backup Quiver) and level 64 (Reclaimed Arrows). You should keep these spells at Adept III or better, else you may well find yourself running out of arrows.
Third; use poison, lots of it. I learned this late (around level 35) and let me say, the difference was day and night. I went from struggling to solo blue cons to easily soloing yellows overnight. I try to keep 3 poisons active at any given time (poison debuff), (high damage / low DOT) and (low damage / high DOT). The poison debuff will stack with the others, but if one of the damage / DOT’s proc it will cancel the other if it is going. Still, it is 2 rolls to proc vs. one so worth the investment and you will see the difference in the outcome as one or the other is almost always going.
Combat
Being a ranger, you will be moving around a lot. There is kind of a battle dance that you will need to get good at to succeed. For soloing, what seems to work the best is to start from maximum bow range with your slowing arrow, then hit the target with DOT and debuff arrows as it (now slowed) makes it way to you. Once you are toe-to-toe, immediately hit the target with your stun and move behind for a back attack that places you in stealth and then use a high damage stealth attack (a little tricky because ranger stun only lasts 6 seconds). At this point I will fire off an H.O. and/or a few hand-to-hand frontals depending on how the target’s health bar looks. By this time my stun is back up. Re-stun the target, backup and fill it with arrows. If you are using a good bow and decent poison, this should do the trick with any non-heroic yellow on down. Rinse and repeat.
In a group, your strategy will be a little different. You now have your tank to think of. He's that nice polite guy out front getting the hell beat out of him and you need to manage the damage you are dolling out at the beginning so that he keeps all the aggro. Depending on your location, you will also not be moving around as much due to the chance of adds or close underground hallways. Unless there is a reason not to, I will generally stay right at the minimum distance to use a bow. That way you can switch from bow shot to backstab without moving most of the time. Start out with your slowing arrow, then hit it with DOT / debuff arrows. At this point I will begin hitting with moderate damage shots every 2 - 3 seconds so that I don’t steal agro. Once the target is in the orange, I step up the rate of fire a little and when it hits red, fire away with your high damage shots. Since hopefully you will be behind the target the entire fight, you can vary between bow shots and backstabs. This combination works well in that you can be doing backstabs while your bow spells are resetting and vice versa.
If you do steal agro (and you will), don’t panic. Your tank is trying to get it back, just hit you threat reducing hot-keys to make that job easier.
Armor
As a ranger, you will have the choice of cloth, leather or chain armor (sorry, no plate). Stick with the chain. There is some great looking leather armor out there, but the higher mitigation values from chain sort of speak for themselves. Don't think we even need to discuss cloth. I have been lucky enough to be in a guild with some great armorsmiths, so have had the luxury (at a fairly low price) of some nice suits of armor.
Ideally, I try to go for the full suit of similar materials as these total suits are very well balanced and designed to carry you through the full 10 levels to your next suit. Try to get the imbued chest and leggings if you can as they will add a nice healing and damage proc. The chain you will want to be looking for:
Level 20-30: Steel (Legendary), Carbonite (Handcrafted)
Level 30-40: Feysteel (Legendary), Feyiron (Handcrafted)
Level 40-50: Ebon (Legendary)
Level 50-60: Cobalt (Legendary)
Level 60-70: Xegonite (Legendary)
Now, to be fair, this legendary stuff isn't cheap. I have listed the “one-notch-below-legendary” suits in the level 20-30 and 30-40 ranges only because the handcrafted suits are much more cost effective, and I did not see much of the legendary equipment available at the times I was at those levels. Plus, what I did see was outlandishly expensive for the money a typical character (a.k.a. Mandallorean) had at those levels, I never could afford a single piece.
There are also some very nice suits of quest-related chain armor available (Mist Grinnin in Nek Forrest for 20+, Emerald Hide in Zek for 30+ and Misthide in EL for 30+) that will also out fit you nicely. This is the route I went throughout my 20’s and 30’s and it worked fine.
Weapons
Two words: Dual Wield. I used a shield for my first 25 levels. Once I tried using two weapons, I never touched a shield again. Chain armor, even with a shield, just isn’t going to keep you up that long. You need to make the other guy dead before you are, and Dual Wield gets you there much faster. Trust me, you’ll like it. Plus the bonuses to your abilities almost always add up to more with two weapons.
Make sure you get three dual weapons with each of the damage types (crushing, slashing and piercing). Rotate them around from time to time to keep your skills up in all three areas.
That’s some general basics on Rangers from my perspective. I didn’t even get into evac, pathfinding, tracking, stealth, etc. Maybe need to work on a Part II soon.
See you out there.